


The Words That Change Us

by swaps55



Series: Opus - The Multiverse [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Banter, Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, M/M, N7 Day, Shepard and Kaidan have a pre-Normandy service history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:29:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27440476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaps55/pseuds/swaps55
Summary: Shepard is more than the N7 emblem they're about to pin on his chest.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard
Series: Opus - The Multiverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006281
Comments: 34
Kudos: 80





	The Words That Change Us

**Author's Note:**

> For N7 Day 2020, have a mild AU of Sam and Kaidan. Because you can never have too many first kisses.

_I promise you’re enough, you're enough, you're enough_   
_I promise you’re enough, you're enough, you're enough_   
_I promise you_

x

**The Words That Change Us**

The griping starts before they even get to the _Myeongnyang’s_ airlock.

“Why do they have to make a big deal out of it?” Shepard mutters, fussing with the cuff of his dress uniform. He’s been trying to button the sleeve for the last ten minutes. They’re about to pin an N7 emblem to his chest, and yet he can’t walk and manage a button at the same time.

“You’re kidding, right?” Kaidan asks.

“I mean, they had to throw me in a hyperbaric chamber when they hauled me off that rock. Seems a little weird to throw a party about it.”

Kaidan grabs Shepard’s wrist, pulling him to a halt and doing the last button himself. He doesn’t like the reminder about the hyperbaric chamber. Just once, it would be nice if the N program didn’t try to kill him and then turn around and call his survival “admirable and effective.”

“I think if I’d put myself through everything you have for the past few years I’d be royally pissed if someone didn’t throw a party over it.”

Shepard eyes him suspiciously. “You don’t like parties.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t run around on an asteroid for a week trying not to breathe.” He pats Shepard on the chest. “Not my party.”

A pained look crosses his face. “Which means you could just fuck off and play poker with the others and no one would give you shit for it.”

“I’m not gonna fuck off and play poker.”

“Why not?”

“Because _you’d_ give me shit for it.”

“Yeah,” Shepard says, as if the idea had just occurred to him and he’s now wholeheartedly behind it. “And it’s my damned party. If I have to suffer, so do you.”

Kaidan gestures expectantly towards the airlock. Shepard grumbles. But before he continues walking he pats at his pockets. “Damn. Forgot something. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

Kaidan waves a helpless arm and looks skyward as Shepard takes back off towards his cabin, then crosses his arms to wait. When Shepard returns there is nothing in his hands.

“What did you forget?” Kaidan asks with a frown.

“Nothing.”

“You’re killing me.”

Shepard gives him a wounded look. “It’s a…talisman, sort of, and I’m sensitive about it, so shut up and get in the airlock.”

Kaidan raises an eyebrow. “A talisman.”

“See, here we go.” Shepard walks into the airlock and smacks the haptic panel, barely giving Kaidan enough time to get in with him.

“I’ve known you for over three years, why have you kept this from me?”

The airlock hisses as the pressure equalizes.

“Because you have a tone that I don’t appreciate.”

“What _tone?_ I don’t have a tone. Look, if all your luck is based on an inanimate object you stuff in a pocket I deserve to know about it, considering _I’m_ usually getting shot at whenever you are. Your luck is my luck.”

Shepard jabs a triumphant finger at Kaidan’s chest. “There’s the tone.”

The airlock finishes cycling and opens up to the familiar clatter and bustle of the Arcturus docking ring. Kaidan grits his teeth against the noise. He’d forgotten how bright the damn docks are compared to the _‘Yang’s_ low lighting.

“How far to this place?” he asks.

“Somewhere in the hub. Don’t worry. I’ve got the lucky talisman, remember? We’ll get there safe and sound.”

Kaidan rolls his eyes. Well, Shepard’s in rare form tonight. Hope whatever gathering of important brass is waiting for them is ready for it.

~

They do manage to find the right door. When it slides open, light, drumbeats, and overlapping voices tumble out. Hell, they brought in a live _band_ for this. The corners of Kaidan’s eyes tighten. Shepard gives him a sidelong glance, but before he can say anything Captain Anderson hooks an arm around him without so much as a hello, forcing him into a hug followed by an emphatic pat on the back, deep grin etched across his face.

“I knew you could do it.”

Shepard grins back. It’s open, honest, elated, like he’s a kid who just won his first hockey game. “Been telling you that since I was fourteen.”

Anderson puts a hand on each of Shepard’s shoulders, pride in his eyes, before a laugh rumbles deep in his throat. He puts one palm to Shepard’s cheek and then shoves it gently. “That you have.”

Kaidan stands quietly to the side, an intruder in a moment that’s not meant for him. A small ripple of jealousy runs through him. He’s not used to having someone in the room who knows Shepard as well as he does. Maybe better.

Anderson certainly understands this moment better than Kaidan does. Shepard had already made N4 when Kaidan met him, and the only firsthand knowledge he’s gained since then is that the N program has something against feeding their initiates. The dress uniform hangs on Shepard a lot looser than it should.

But Anderson lived it. Set the _bar_ for it. And according to Shepard, he’d gone to bat for him, _hard,_ after he washed out of ICT the first time.

A biotic trying to make it through N1 wasn’t something anyone in the Villa was prepared for. No biotic had ever tried it. Taking calories away from a normal person and asking them to perform at their best is one thing. Taking them away from biotics who need even more of them is another, especially when that biotic is Shepard. Thanks to his implant, keeping his blood sugar and electrolyte levels stable is a lot harder than it should be. Putting him on a starvation diet could kill him. It nearly had.

But he’d gone back in, and done it _again,_ determined to pass. Anderson was there for him through that. Not Kaidan. This celebration is for them.

Truthfully, as he looks around the room he wonders why he’s here at all. The cozy ballroom they’re honoring him in is stuffed with strange faces. Admiral and general bars decorate collars everywhere he looks, and a handful of others, Anderson included, wear N7 insignias. Those who wear neither have the look of spec ops about them. Kaidan would bet all the credits in his chit they’re Ns of some variety, probably people Shepard has worked with over the years. There might not be anyone in this room who couldn’t either beat or order Kaidan to death if they felt so inclined.

The only familiar face besides Anderson is Captain Oseguera, who chats happily with a rear admiral at a table across the room. When she catches sight of Kaidan she smiles and raises a glass of wine in greeting.

Shepard, on the other hand, knows almost everyone he sees. Once Anderson turns him loose he glides around the room, shaking hands, laughing like he means it, and not like he’s secretly plotting how he’d take each and every one of them out with whatever’s in reach like he usually does. He’s in his _element_.

“Don’t see him like this often,” Anderson observes. Kaidan jumps, not realizing he was still there.

“No, sir.”

He’s only met Anderson a couple of times, and this might be the first time they’ve ever spoken without Shepard standing next to him. The captain is an imposing figure, far too comfortable in a dress uniform. First N7. A list of commendations longer than Kaidan’s arm. Shepard sure picked a hell of a mentor.

“He’s earned it,” Anderson rumbles, nodding at Shepard, who laughs and claps a major – one of the probable spec ops guests – on the back. “Worked his ass off.”

Kaidan nods. “I know.

Anderson levels him with solemn gaze. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Kaidan asks in surprise.

“For keeping him on his feet.”

Kaidan chuckles and shakes his head. “I had nothing to do with it, believe me.” If anything, Kaidan had tried to discourage him. Surely it wasn’t worth the things he did to his body to earn it. Shepard was already the best soldier Kaidan had ever laid eyes on. What did an extra number matter?

But it does matter. One look at him is proof that the number means everything to him.

Anderson lays a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder, still watching Shepard. “You did a lot more than you think.”

Before Kaidan can ask what he means, Anderson walks over to greet an admiral.

Holy fuck, it’s not just any admiral. It’s Admiral _Hackett._ Kaidan stares as the two say hello like old friends. When Anderson calls Shepard over, he shakes the commander of the Fifth Fleet’s hand like it’s familiar, and not the first time.

Admiral Steven fucking Hackett is here, celebrating _Shepard’s_ N7 designation. That sure as hell puts it in perspective. Kaidan can’t imagine very many lieutenant commanders are on Hackett’s radar, spec ops or not.

The tempo of the music picks up. Kaidan pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before heading over to the bar and ordering a beer. When he turns to scan the room again he catches Shepard watching him with a raised eyebrow in a silent, _everything all right?_

Kaidan tips him a two fingered salute _._ Shepard’s eyes narrow, but he nods turns back to the conversation waiting for him.

The whole event is a stark reminder of how much of Shepard’s life takes place beyond the hull of the _Myeongnyang._ For the last three years, Kaidan’s world has been the _‘Yang_ and Shepard’s marine detail. But not Shepard’s. Between the N courses and the special ops missions he runs for Anderson, Shepard’s world is much…bigger. And a lot easier to get lost in the shuffle.

So he’s surprised when Shepard snags him by the arm about twenty minutes later and tugs him across the room to a dark-haired woman scowling at a tray of hor d'oeuvres that’s been left on a high top table.

The gravity well shifts as they approach, and it’s not Shepard’s field. Kaidan glances sharply at him out of the corner of his eyes, but Shepard just grins. The biotic’s name is Nisha Soni, an L3 marine lieutenant who just made N2.

“She reached out to me when she got accepted in Rio,” Shepard says. “I gave her a few tips on how not to die.”

Kaidan raises an eyebrow. “You almost did die. Seems like your advice would be pretty lousy.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Shepard says good naturedly.

Soni snickers, and gestures to the hor d'oeuvres. Leave it to the biotics to find the food. But one sniff of it and his stomach turns. He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “No thanks.”

She shrugs and pops another one in her mouth.

He closes his eyes briefly.

Not here. Not now. Not tonight.

To make it worse, his meds are on the ship.

Kaidan listens as Soni talks about the grueling experience of being an ICT biotic. There have only been seven of them in total, Shepard being the first, and the first to make it all the way to N7.

“You ever thought about Rio?” Soni asks him.

Kaidan shakes his head and gestures at Shepard. “I’ve got enough trouble. Don’t need to go looking for more.”

Truth is, after Jump Zero he doesn’t see the appeal of putting himself through more hell just for the sake of calling himself a better soldier. He’s given the Alliance enough of who he is.

It’s something he’s never understood about Shepard. Shepard _looks_ for that kind of hell, as if he can’t find meaning outside of it.

 _Thank you for keeping him on his feet,_ Anderson had said. What the hell had that meant? If anything, Kaidan slowed him down. After he came back to the ‘ _Yang_ an N5, weighing nearly ten kilos less than what he’d been when he left, Kaidan had berated him rather than congratulate him.

Yeah, Kaidan was great help.

By the time their conversation switches over to amps, a low throb picks up at his left temple. Soni asks him for his thoughts on the Polaris. Kaidan’s got plenty, but instead he defers to Shepard in favor of putting all his mental energy into willing that throb to go away.

He feels Shepard’s eyes on him, but instead of acknowledging him Kaidan focuses at a point on the wall just over Soni’s shoulder. Old trick he learned years ago. Helps it look like he’s paying attention instead of doing damage control.

Soni excuses herself to the bar a few minutes later, and someone calls Shepard’s name.

“You good?” Shepard asks, head tilting.

“I’m good,” Kaidan agrees.

When Shepard leaves to answer his summons Kaidan lets out a breath. He’d felt it coming earlier today, had even taken a dose of triptans to ward it off. Sometimes it works.

Not tonight. Now his only prayer is the tailored drug cocktail Dr. Wendler puts together for the big ones, which is unhelpfully back on the ship.

How the hell could he have forgotten his meds?

He switches from alcohol to water, but before long even the water is unappetizing. The longer the evening goes, the more Kaidan’s head starts to pound. He grits his teeth and forces a smile with each introduction, and even keeps up with some small talk until the pounding takes an agonizing turn, complete with a dark spot in the corner of his left eye.

Kaidan grits his teeth and makes his way to the perimeter of the room. If he can just lay low and get through the remarks, maybe he can slip out undetected, ask for forgiveness later.

Captain Anderson steps up onto the small stage at the rear of the ballroom and taps the microphone. Kaidan winces at the feedback and rubs at his temples. Anderson starts speaking, but Kaidan quickly loses the thread. Something about perseverance. Determination. Adversity. Best of the best. Kaidan sure as hell doesn’t need to see an N7 logo to know all those things about Shepard. He sees it every damned day. And those aren’t the things that matter, anyway.

He kind of prefers the Shepard who can’t walk and button a button at the same time, and drags him to parties just to have someone to suffer with. The Alliance can have “admirable and effective” if that’s what they really want.

Actually, what Kaidan really wants is a place to sit down. The throbbing has now become a sharp lance right through his temple, and the black spot in his left eye is getting bigger. His vision burs. _Shit._

Shepard joins Anderson on the podium. The look on his face when Anderson pins a twin N7 emblem to his chest makes the pain in his head almost feel worth it.

Almost.

It’s too hard to focus on the words, so he just listens to Shepard’s voice. It’s rich, full, rife with his usual confidence but not the performative edge he uses when he speaks to an audience. It’s all off the cuff, too. Shepard never thinks about what he says before he says it. He just opens his mouth and the right words fall out. It’s freakish. Inspiring. Like the rest of him.

Kaidan wants to listen to it. But all he can think about is the agony in his head. He braces a forearm against the wall and leans his head against it, eyes clamped shut. Eventually he’s going to have to get himself out of here.

Eventually. Not yet. Let Shepard finish speaking.

Is he still speaking?

Kaidan forces his eyes open, but he can only see out of the right one. Fuck. _Fuck._ He closes them again, pulling in a deep breath. His stomach turns.

Oh, good, the nausea’s here. Right on time. Kaidan grits his teeth.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Just wait it out. In a few minutes he can leave. Just a few minutes. He needs just a few more minutes.

Shepard’s biotic field washes over him moments before he takes Kaidan’s arm and presses a dermal injector to the inside of his elbow. A familiar feeling like ice water runs through him, the same one he gets when he takes Dr. Wendler’s drug cocktail.

“What—?”

“I’ve got you,” Shepard says, putting a hand to his back and pushing him towards the door. “Come on.”

The immediate effect of the drugs is mild, a small hint of relief, but it dulls the pain just enough he can get an eye open and push some words out of his mouth. “What are you doing?”

“Extracting,” Shepard replies. He palms the door switch. A swath of cool air sweeps over them when it opens. It’s like a release valve for the pressure of sound from the ballroom, but he pays a price. The corridor is so much brighter Kaidan sucks air in through his teeth and shuts his eyes.

“This way,” Shepard says, hand on his back to guide him in the right direction.

Kaidan digs in his heels. “No.”

“Pretty sure it’s this way.”

“No—you. Stay here. ’m fine.”

“Oh, yeah,” Shepard says. “You look _real_ fine. Picture of health.”

Kaidan puts a hand to his forehead and _pushes_ as hard as he can. As though adding more pressure to what’s already mounting in his skull will improve his situation. “Don’t need an escort.”

Shepard snorts. “Right, I’ll just pin a note to your chest that says, ‘property of the _Myeongnyang,_ please return if found.’”

“Might work.”

“Kaidan.”

“I can get back on my own.”

Shepard lets go of him, backs a couple of steps away and folds his arms across his chest. “Sure, fine. Knock yourself out.”

Kaidan takes a step, inhales sharp though his nose and wavers as dizziness washes over him, with a side of nausea just for kicks. He throws an arm out to balance himself but Shepard is already at his side, pulling Kaidan’s arm around his neck. “I didn’t mean knock yourself out _literally_ , you ass.”

Kaidan grunts. In response, Shepard slips an arm around his waist.

“I can’t see out of my left eye,” Kaidan mumbles.

“I know.”

“What do you mean you _know_.”

“I know all your tells,” Shepard replies. “Will you shut up and let me help you?”

Kaidan hesitates, gripping Shepard’s shoulder until some of the nausea passes. “Everyone in that room is here for you.”

“They’ll wait.”

“No they _won’t.”_

Shepard starts walking, dragging Kaidan along with him. “They can wait or they can go home. I’ve got more important places to be.”

“Escorting your helpless lieutenant is more important than celebrating the thing you’ve worked for your whole life.”

“Yes.”

Kaidan digests this for a moment. If the pounding in his skull would just subside for half a second, maybe he could digest it quicker.

“If I promise to go back to the party after I tuck you in bed, will you please stop being a pain the ass?” Shepard asks.

“Fine.”

“You’re too good to me.”

Kaidan cracks an eye open. Shepard grins at him. The grin is worth the migraine. His fingers tingle – another side effects of the meds. It’ll be at least another thirty minutes before they really kick in, if they work at all.

“You gave me my meds.”

“Boy, you’re real quick tonight, aren’t you?”

Kaidan grits his teeth. Shepard chuckles.

“Told you I almost forgot something important. Bet you’re glad I went back for it now.”

“How—?”

“Fuck, you ask a lot of questions for someone with a jackhammer punching holes in your skull. You know I did frontline trauma for N3, right? I actually do know what all the shit in your medkit does, and if it’s up to me to use it we’re not all fucked. Plus, I have all the override codes for your medical exoskeleton, which means I have all the drug pack data. I know how to take care of you.”

 _He had it ready in his pocket._ Kaidan hadn’t even thought to bring it with him. Shepard had gone _back_ for it.

“I’m your talisman.”

“Yeah,” Shepard says, almost uneasily. “Besides, you do this kind of shit for me all the time.”

They walk in silence, Shepard keeping the pace slow. When another wave of nausea passes through, he finds a bench for them to sit down. Kaidan hunches over, head between his hands with his eyes squeezed shut, willing himself not to vomit. Shepard rubs his back in slow, even circles. It…helps.

“I’m sorry,” Kaidan mumbles.

“For what?”

“This meant a lot to you.”

“It was just a party.”

“No, it _wasn’t.”_

Shepard puts a hand on his arm and leans closer. “Yes. It was.”

“Anderson was there. Admiral _Hackett_ was there.”

“So?”

“They’re important to you.”

“So are you.”

Kaidan falls silent. Fuck his implant. Fuck the faulty wiring in his head. Fuck not remembering to bring his own damn meds. If only Anderson could see this. _Keep Shepard on his feet my ass_. _Can’t even keep myself on my feet._

“Anderson thanked me today,” Kaidan says, cracking an eye open. Every ship in the Alliance is practically a darkroom. Why the hell is Arcturus so _bright?_ He sucks air in through his teeth. “Can’t figure out why.”

Shepard gives him a bemused look. “No wonder you have a migraine.”

“Stop trying to be funny,” Kaidan grunts. “It gives me a migraine.”

“I’m delightfully funny,” Shepard informs him, “which you might notice if you weren’t so busy thinking yourself into a migraine.”

Kaidan tries to laugh, but immediately regrets it. Shepard tightens his grip on Kaidan’s arm.

“See? _Funny_.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“Quit noticing."

“Shepard.” It comes out as a mumble, and the way Shepard’s fingers dig into his forearm before relaxing suggests he’s listening now. “He said I keep you on your feet. Why would he say that?”

Shepard’s brow furrows. Instead of answer, he gets to his feet and pulls Kaidan back to his. “How about we get the icepick out of your head, and then talk about this.”

“No. If we talk about it now you’ll take pity and actually give me an answer.”

Shepard huffs, grips Kaidan’s arm and resumes course, footsteps slow and steady.

“I didn’t do anything to help you earn this,” Kaidan persists. “Why does he think I did?”

More silence. More steps. Each footfall ricochets off the deckplates, pricking at the base of Kaidan’s skull. Where the fuck is the airlock? It feels like they’ve been walking for hours.

“You’re stable ground,” Shepard says at last.

 _Stable ground_. Maybe if his head wasn’t throbbing so hard he could figure out what the hell that means.

“You don’t…want anything from me,” Shepard continues. His voice is small, uncertain, as though now that he’s voiced the thought aloud he might find out it isn’t true.

It isn’t true.

 _You. I want you_.

Kaidan sucks in a breath and squeezes his eyes shut as the throbbing picks up in tempo. Shepard puts a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Everyone expects something from me,” Shepard says quietly. “Admiral Hackett. My mother. Everyone. Especially after Torfan. I can’t _talk_ to anyone without some kind of speculation about what mountain I have to tackle next. Doesn’t matter what I’ve _done._ It’s always…what’s next. And there better be an answer. But not with you.”

“Not with Anderson, either,” Kaidan counters, heart beating out of sync with the hammering in his head.

“Not anymore, maybe.”

“What do you—” _God_. He’d done it for Anderson. All of it. All the hell he put himself through for the N program wasn’t for him at all. It was for _Anderson._ To be worthy of his faith, his devotion. As if Anderson wouldn’t have given him those things no matter what.

“You’re enough just as you are, Shepard,” Kaidan says hoarsely. “You know that, right?”

Shepard waves a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

Kaidan forces them to a stop, grimacing. The agony in his head is still ratcheting higher and the food in his stomach still doesn’t like being there. Fuck it. It can wait. “Yes. It does. You’re _enough._ You don’t have to prove it to anyone.”

“Maybe not to you,” Shepard says with a wry smile.

 _No. I love you exactly as you are._ He can’t imagine doing it any other way. What hurts is knowing that’s not enough for _Shepard_.

“Come on,” Shepard says gently. “I need to get you to a dark room.”

Something else nags at him, something Shepard had said earlier, but then they round a corner and the thought’s gone, because a holo advertisement blazes to life with a spectrum of color and flashing lights. He groans. Shepard takes his arm and loops it back around his neck, returns his arm to Kaidan’s waist.

“Not much farther.”

“You’re enough,” Kaidan repeats. “Fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.”

“Okay,” Shepard says, so soft Kaidan almost doesn’t hear him. “I hear you.”

Does he? _Does_ he? _I didn’t need to see a fucking N7 on your uniform to know I’d never find better than you._

They reach the airlock a few minutes later, and Kaidan is indeed glad Shepard’s there, because he can’t dig a single number of the access code out of his tortured brain. But Shepard enters it right in, and within seconds it’s open and ready to cycle. When it finishes, the welcoming dim light of the _‘Yang_ is waiting. Kaidan sighs with relief.

“No place like home, huh?” Shepard asks, amusement in his voice.

“Urnnf,” Kaidan replies.

Shepard chuckles. Instead of taking him to crew quarters, however, he goes straight to his private cabin, loosening his hold on Kaidan just long enough to bring up his omnitool and flash his fingers across a few keys. When the door opens, the only light is the dim track lighting around the perimeter.

“Shepard—”

“I swear to christ, if you argue with me I’ll take you straight back to the party and leave your ass there,” Shepard warns.

Kaidan glares at him. Shepard points at the bed.

When Kaidan hesitates Shepard pushes him gently to it and hovers until he gives in and sits. A sigh escapes him. Just being off his feet is a relief. He rests his head in his hands. “My head fucking hurts.”

“No kidding.” Shepard kneels down in front of him and undoes the buttons of his dress coat, then tugs it off, leaving just the t-shirt underneath, Kaidan too miserable to stop him. He tosses it over a chair. When Kaidan remains sitting, Shepard presses on his shoulder until he lays down. He’s got his hands on Kaidan’s bootstrings when Kaidan jerks it away.

“Can take care of my own boots,” he grumbles.

Shepard holds his hands up in surrender. Kaidan catches the heel of one boot with the other and tries to shove it off without leaning over to use his hands. He gets it halfway there. After watching him struggle a few more seconds Shepard smiles and tugs it off, dropping it on the floor, then yanks the other one free before Kaidan can protest. He pats Kaidan’s leg.

“Water on the nightstand. Another dose in the drawer. Sleep it off, Lieutenant. I’ll check on you later.”

Kaidan mumbles under his breath. Shepard is halfway to the door when Kaidan remembers what he’d wanted to say before. “Your mom wasn’t there.”

Shepard stops and turns back to him, body tensing. “No. She wasn’t.”

“She should have been.”

“I know.” He shrugs a shoulder. “ _Kilimanjaro’s_ out in the Maroon Sea somewhere. Just how it is.”

“She should have been there.”

“It’s okay,” he says, with a lopsided smile. “I don’t need her. Anderson was there. And…you were there.”

“But I’m not—”

“You’re enough.”

Kaidan swallows, throat dry, agony still beating at his skull. _You’re enough._ He doesn’t know whether to argue or ask him to say it again. “I don’t—”

“Kaidan.” Shepard walks back to him and takes a knee beside the bed, running his fingers across Kaidan’s forehead. There’s a softness in his eyes, in his _voice,_ Kaidan isn’t used to. But he wants to be. God, he wants to be.

A soft sigh slips out of his throat before he can stop it.

“ _You_ are enough,” Shepard repeats. The hand on Kaidan’s forehead shifts down until Shepard traps his chin between a thumb and forefinger. For a moment he hovers, and Kaidan holds his breath. Gently, Shepard brushes his lips against Kaidan’s forehead.

Everything stops. The pounding in his head. The breath in his throat. It all stops.

“Shepard,” Kaidan whispers. They lock eyes, only millimeters apart, each searching the other for something, _anything._

_You are enough._

Shepard kisses him again. This time on the mouth.

Kaidan inhales sharply, struck still for what feels like an eternity before he cups the back of Shepard’s neck with a hand and draws him in closer. _Please don’t stop, please don’t stop._

Shepard doesn’t.

It’s slow. Tender. _Thorough_. Kaidan shifts just enough to get his other arm free and wraps it around him, pulling until Shepard gets the hint and pushes up off his knee and slips into bed with him, body draped overtop of his, hand running up and down his side.

“You’re enough,” Kaidan mumbles into his mouth, seizing the front of his uniform in a fist, the sharp edges of that N7 pin catching between his fingers. “You’re enough. You’re _enough_.” He repeats it, over and over, until they’re out of breath and rest their foreheads together.

“You’ve always been enough for me,” Kaidan murmurs.

Shepard runs a thumb across Kaidan’s cheek, expression raw. “I’m not going back to the party.”

Kaidan nods, eyes wide. The drumbeats pick back up in his head. Shepard pulls away from him just long enough to shuck his own dress coat, then tries to knock his boots off without using his hands.

“Not as easy as it looks, is it,” Kaidan mumbles.

“You’re the worst, you know that?” Shepard grunts before giving in and sitting up to kick them off.

“Mmmpf. And yet you’d rather be here than the guest of honor.”

Shepard nestles in beside Kaidan, throwing an arm across his waist and pressing a kiss against his neck. “Yeah. I would.”

Kaidan traps Shepard’s arm against his waist and exhales. “This…isn’t what I pictured for this. I’d hoped the first time you kissed me would not involve being crippled by a migraine.”

“Just have to kiss you in the morning then,” Shepard murmurs.

Kaidan smiles. Sighs. And melts into Shepard’s arms.

It’s…enough.


End file.
